Afropop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange "Mrs. Goundo's Daughter"

Afropop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange "Mrs. Goundo's Daughter"

A personal look at the controversy surrounding the practice of genital mutiliation.

The African ritual of female genital cutting prompts one young Malian mother to seek asylum in the United States to protect her two-year-old daughter from the pain and sometimes horrific health consequences of the practice. Mrs. Goundo's Daughter bridges the mother's two worlds — the largely Islamic West African village and her adopted home in Philadelphia. Throughout, the film gives equal time to activists fighting to end the practice and traditionalists trying to defend it. Afropop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange "Mrs. Goundo's Daughter"airs Wednesday, February 9 and encores Sunday, February 13 at 7 p.m. on WXXI World (cable 524/DT21.2).

The anthology series Afropop: The Ultimate Cultural Exchange continues its exploration of the present-day realities and contemporary lifestyles of Africans, both on the continent and in the evolving diaspora. These artful, independent films offer complicated, and at times controversial, viewpoints about Africa. This season's offerings examine the effect of development and gentrification on one community's art and street culture, the rise of three reggae musicians in Jamaica, the contemporary Haitian-American experience in New York City, the plight of one Afro-Colombian family displaced by civil war and and the hotly debated practice of genital mutiliation, among others.